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Martin Leach - Profile Home About Us Research Education Jobs Support Us News Contact Us Centenary 2009 Search: keyword You are here: ● ● ● ● Researcher Biographies » Martin Leach Martin Leach - Profile ● News Releases ● Cancer Voices ● Patient Information ● Science Highlights ● Researcher Biographies ● Campaigns ● Press Release Archive ● PR Contacts Martin Leach is Professor of Physics as Applied to Medicine, and Joint Section Chairman and Co-Director of the new Cancer Research UK and EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. Professor Leach’s research focuses on advancing and defining the use of magnetic resonance (MR) in detecting cancer, diagnosing cancer, assessing cancer spread and evaluating patient response to treatment. His current projects include assessing biological processes in tissue using MR, finding biological markers that can be used to evaluate new treatments, working out how to use MR to more accurately target radiotherapy to patients’ cancer cells while avoiding healthy tissue and improving methods to measure and analyse breast cancers. Professor Leach was drawn to cancer imaging as a way to use his fascination with nuclear physics – sparked while a Physics student at the University of Surrey - for social benefit. This led to a Masters in Applied Radiation Physics and a PhD at Birmingham, where Professor Leach began developing methods of non-invasively measuring body composition using a range of nuclear accelerators. In 1978, Professor Leach started at the physics department of the ICR and The Royal Marsden, a partnership which he still considers “the best in the country at applying research developments to cancer medicine”. Professor Leach initially joined to develop computerised tomography imaging devices (imaging slices through the body), helping to precisely map tumours in three dimensions. The aim of these maps was to assist doctors in planning radiotherapy treatment, so the cancer cells could be accurately located and targeted with radiation. He also worked on nuclear imaging techniques including the use of radioactive isotopes and positron emission topography (PET). When Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology became available, Professor Leach worked with the then Head of Radiology, Professor Dame Janet Husband, to plan a programme of research to examine the possible applications of MRI in cancer care. “I was particularly drawn to this as it included challenging physics and the ability to image non-invasively, but also the potential to measure the metabolic and functional properties of tumours,” Professor Leach says. “Our facility was the first high field system in the country capable of both measuring metabolism and anatomy, and in 1990 we were established as the CRC Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research Group.” Professor Leach says developing this new area of research and bringing it from the laboratory to the clinic has been one of his greatest achievements at the ICR, as it has major applications for patients. Other successful projects include demonstrating that MRI is a sensitive method of screening for breast cancer in women with genetic mutations giving a high risk of the disease, leading to new guidelines in the UK, USA and elsewhere, and also that MR can be used to non-invasively measure changes in the chemistry of cancer cells that can report on the action of new cancer treatments targeting cell function. Prof Leach has also developed methods to measure tumour vascular properties that now play an important role in evaluating new treatments. Professor Leach is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, as well as of the Institute of Physics and the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. He is a Clinical Scientist and an NIHR Senior Investigator, serves on a number of editorial boards and was previously Editor of Physics in Medicine and Biology. He is principal investigator or co-applicant on grants in excess of £17million, including the new Cancer Imaging Centre, the Wellcome Trust-coordinated 3T Clinical Infrastructure Facility, and Research Council, EU and NCI (USA) funded http://www.icr.ac.uk/press/profiles/martin_leach/ (1 of 3) [23-Feb-10 4:51:46 PM] Home » News » Martin Leach - Profile awards. In the future, Professor Leach says he hopes to improve methods of detecting and assessing cancer, and of planning and monitoring the effect of treatments. “This will increasingly come from combining different types of information about function and metabolism with anatomical information,” he says. “We will also be combining different imaging techniques from the range of imaging equipment available in our new Cancer Imaging Centre to find the best way to characterise disease, guide tissue sampling and treatment, and assess novel treatments.” Outside work, Professor Leach enjoys living in Sussex with his wife Jan, and daughters when at home, gardening, walking, music and history. Back to Scientific Profiles Researcher Biographies ● Gert Attard ● Udai Banerji ● Louis Chesler ● Colin Cooper ● David Dearnaley ● Johann de Bono ● Nandita deSouza ● Ros Eeles ● Janine Erler ● Mel Greaves ● Alan Horwich ● Kevin Harrington ● Robert Huddart ● Stan Kaye ● Martin Leach ● Richard Marais ● Chris Parker ● Andrew Pearson ● David Phillips ● Liz Rapley ● Caroline Springer ● Anthony Swerdlow ● Paul Workman http://www.icr.ac.uk/press/profiles/martin_leach/ (2 of 3) [23-Feb-10 4:51:46 PM]